Closer Look at 17" LCD Monitor Features. Part VI. Page 26

We continue our detailed roundups of 17" flat-panel monitors. Today we will look at 16 solutions from LG, Samsung, Sony, Viewsonic, Mitsubishi, NEC, and a few others. For the first time in our lab we are proud to introduce to you a monitor from ASUS.

The monitor features a technology similar to MagicBright, LightView and avMode. Here, it is called ECO. By pressing the ECO button you can browse through three backlight-brightness settings (other parameters remain intact): “High”, “Middle” and “Low”.

The default settings of the monitor are: 100% backlight brightness, 50% matrix brightness, and 100% contrast brightness. I achieved 100nit brightness of white by choosing 0% matrix brightness and 85% backlight brightness. This is of course only one of the possible combinations since having three adjustable parameters you can achieve it in many different ways.

I could find no faults with the image, at least subjectively. Gradients are reproduced neatly; the image is sharp; the monitor adjusts for the signal without problems. The viewing angles are typical for a TN+Film matrix: the horizontal angle is wide for comfortable work, but the narrowness of the vertical angle may be felt sometimes.

The color curves have a neat shape, save for the minor “hump” at the left of the graph. When the matrix brightness is reduced to zero (the backlight brightness does not affect the color reproduction), we have the same situation: that is, the monitor carefully reproduces the entire range of colors.

The temperature of gray is too high, like with many other LCD monitors. People who buy this monitor should be aware that the color temperature of the SDM-HS75 is set to 9300K by default, and the image looks colder in comparison with other monitors. Note also that when you choose the sRGB mode, the monitor’s brightness and contrast settings become locked.

The full response time is rather big, but the HS75 won’t feel slow in practice: as you can see on the diagram, the pixel rise time is no more than 25 milliseconds at the maximum, and this is a normal speed for a modern TN+Film matrix.

The contrast ratio, unfortunately, is poor. It is not higher than 150:1. Thus, if you want to get the deepest black possible on the HS75, you should set the matrix brightness (the Brightness setting in the monitor’s menu) at zero. But even in this case you won’t get a really good black color. But when the matrix brightness is set to 50% and higher, black becomes gray altogether.

So, with a curious and beautiful exterior, the Sony SDM-HS75 is quite an ordinary monitor inside. Its main problem is the low contrast ratio. Otherwise, it doesn’t differ from the rest of 17” models on TN+Film matrices. If you value functionality more than a cure appearance, you may want to consider the above-described models from Samsung first or the ViewSonics I’m going to discuss later on. The SDM-HS75 will suit people who enjoy beautiful things even if they are not the best in terms of technical characteristics.